


Unfinished Business

by garfunkelandgoats



Category: Fargo (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen, Ghost!Numbers AU, M/M, somewhat angsty, vaguely crackish
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-24
Updated: 2017-07-24
Packaged: 2018-12-06 05:48:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11594205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/garfunkelandgoats/pseuds/garfunkelandgoats
Summary: In which Lester Nygaard finds himself haunted by a dead hitman with the personality of an obnoxious housecat.





	Unfinished Business

**Author's Note:**

> This was a really stupid idea but I couldn't un-think it, so.

Las Vegas, NV  
2007

 

“Is this what you want, Lester?” 

There’s a threat in the way Malvo looks at him, eyebrows raised--an implication, one that he doesn’t miss. No, Lester knows exactly what he means, and it sends a shiver down his spine. He glances to the closed elevator doors and for a moment wishes he’d turned away at the bar, that he’d let well enough be, that he hadn’t gone looking for the monster that’s been dogging his dreams for the past year, hiding at the corner of his eye, in the shadows behind every corner.

Lester smiles sheepishly, shifting to his other foot. “Uhh…” 

He trails off, glancing to the blonde woman in the tight dress. The sides of her mouth are twitching, like she’s not sure whether or not to be afraid, whether or not this is happening, whether it’s all some bizarre joke. A part of him wonders the same.

The fat man is telling Malvo to lighten up but that’s not the name he uses, because _of course_ it isn’t. His mouth is opening and closing, wide and gaping like a dying fish, sweat beading on his brow. The woman at his side is a non-entity. Invisible, the way Lester used to be; small and mousy and insignificant. He hates her, irrationally, wants to scream at her until she wipes that stupid look off her face.

They’re looking at him like he’s the strange one here, like everything about Malvo doesn’t scream danger, like he’s still the Old Lester, still some ineffectual little nothing. Like he hasn’t already won.

“I, uhh….” Lester sucks on his teeth, glancing back to Malvo, whose expression is unchanged. Although his expression is joking, mouth turned up into an approximation of a smile, his eyes slowly lose their spark, fading into something cold and dead and metallic, like those of a shark. A wolf. Something great and awful, something feral, something predatory.

“Yes or no?” The blonde woman’s eyebrows are furrowed, an unbecoming wrinkle formed in the middle as she looks between the two, probably about to say something.

Lester looks down, then up. Blinks stupidly. Tries for a smile. It’s awkward. Tries again for something neutral. Something confident.

“Yes,” he says, half joking, and Malvo doesn’t even blink before the fat man’s brains are splattered across the walls. Just a pop, and then the mousy woman’s down too. Screaming, and then another, and the blonde crumples to the floor like a puppet with her strings cut.

“That’s on you,” Malvo says, cool as anything. 

His lips turn up, like he’s trying not to laugh, like it’s a joke that three people are _dead_. Lester presses against the wall, eyes wide, chest heaving, and feels nothing. He swears inaudibly, running a hand through his carefully-styled hair, as he looks between the bodies on the floor. Malvo’s saying something, still grinning at Lester with his dead eyes like he’s telling a joke, his face no different now from when he was making small talk with the three corpses back at their table five minutes ago.

The doors open and Malvo presses a button and they close again, heading all the way down to the basement. 

He’s gonna kill me, Lester thinks, I’m gonna die down here.

Or he won’t. Or he can go with him. He likes Lester, right? Seems to, anyways. Enough. Lester impressed him, didn’t he, with how he’s changed? 

But that look’s still in his eyes, flat and dead and empty, and Lester realizes that to a man like Malvo he’s nothing. Less than nothing. He’s prey.

The doors open again.

“Grab the fat guy’s feet,” Malvo says, affably enough. “We’ll throw him in a dumpster.”

He bends to grab the corpse from the floor and Lester bashes him in the head with his trophy and takes off running.

“See you later, Lester.” Malvo calls from behind him, making no effort to follow, casual as ever.

“See you soon.”

 

Lester’s brain is going a mile a minute, working up a cold sweat, his lungs feeling like they’re about to burst as he hurries to his floor, looking over his shoulder every other second. He glances down the hallway, struggling to catch his breath, and his heart nearly stops in his chest.

There’s a commotion coming from his room, the sound of a man yelling--too high to be Malvo, he thinks, not that he’s ever actually heard Malvo yell--and for a second he strongly considers running. Linda’s in there but, well, better her than him, right? He loves her, sure, but is he really willing to risk it?

“Fuck--FUCK--what the fuck--! Wrench?!”

Lester takes a step forward and then another, straining to hear what’s being said. He runs his tongue over his teeth, sweating profusely, and stretches his fingers as he slowly, hesitantly reaches for the doorknob.

“LOOK AT ME, YOU STUPID BITCH!”

The man is screaming at the top of his lungs and Lester wonders how the heck nobody else is hearing this, how no one is coming out to see what all the noise is about, and in spite of himself he unlocks the door and opens it, his breath catching in his throat as he imagines what sort of horrific scene could be on the other side.

What he finds instead is Linda sitting on the bed with a book, her knees drawn up to her chest. She turns and smiles sweetly at him. 

“Hi, hon,” she says.

But he doesn’t look at her. 

Because curled in a ball in the corner of the room--digging his fingers into his hair as if he were trying to rip it out, eyes bugging out of his head--one of the two hitmen who kidnapped Lester a year ago is screaming himself hoarse.

Lester stares, mouth agape.

Because he knows this man, remembers how he held his face in his hands and threatened to kill him if he threw up, remembers electrocuting him, remembers seeing his face on the news and hearing about how he was killed, how the other one, the deaf fella, escaped from the hospital.

The hitman notices him then, eyes, dark and wild, looking more exhausted than ever in life, his skin pallid. He stares at Lester like _he’s_ the one seeing a ghost. And then his expression morphs into something ugly, something hateful, and he braces himself against the wall as he climbs to his feet, shaking.

His throat is torn open savagely, the gash deep and jagged, as if Malvo tried to tear his head off.

“You fuck,” he spits. “You goddamn rat.”

Lester looks to Linda, sees her confused, frowning slightly. “Lester? Are you okay?”

“I’m, uh, I’m fine, hon…”

“WHERE THE FUCK IS HE, LESTER?” He’s shouting, voice cracking, looking like he wants nothing more than to wring Lester’s neck.

“Are you sure? ‘Cause you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Lester laughs, incredulous and a little hysterical, and runs a hand through his hair. 

“Ah, heck--I don’t know.”

The hitman crosses the room, looming over Lester, who has to fight not to shrink back instinctively.

“What the fuck did that sick freak do to me, Lester? Why can’t she fucking see me?”

“I don’t know,” he says again, smiling nervously. Linda gets up and touches his forehead with the back of her hand, concerned.

“You don’t have a fever,” she murmurs, and he can barely hear her as the hitman continues to yell in Lester’s face.

And then Lester’s eyes are drawn again to the gash across his throat and he remembers Malvo,

“Linda, I need you to--ya gotta pack your things, hon.” He grabs her arms, forcing a smile, and she frowns.

“What? Why?”

“Don’t ignore me, you little shit--”

Lester turns away, walks to the closet, starts grabbing their things, “Get dressed, get dressed,”

“Lester, are you okay?” She follows him, walking through the hitman, who stares in horror as she passes through him with no resistance.

“What the fuck.”

“I’m fine, just get dressed--” Lester starts haphazardly shoving their clothes in suitcases.

“Lester, what the fuck?!”

 

“Hon--come on!” Lester plasters on his best salesman face and gestures to Linda, who warily starts packing.

“Is everything alright?”

“It’s fine, hon, everything’s fine, we just need to go home right now--”

The hitman leans over the bed, glowering, his nose inches from Lesters’ as the shorter man avoids eye contact.

“Am I dead?” He’s glaring but his voice wavers, like he knows the answer but is afraid to say it, like saying will make it real more than his ruined throat already did.

“Yes,” says Lester, nodding repeatedly. He’s losing his marbles. Has to be. There’s no way this is real.

The hitman swears again, pulls back, runs a hand through his hair. He’s a real neurotic one, that’s for sure. He sees the bathroom and storms inside.

“WHAT THE FUCK, LESTER.”

“C’mon, hon, let’s go, we gotta go--” They shove the rest of their things into suitcases and Lester practically drags her out of the room.

“Lester, you’re hurting me.”

“Sorry, sorry. Keep up, hon. Keep up.” Lester hurries down the hallway, looking over his shoulder, as Linda follows at his heels.


End file.
